Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Principle of Charity: demand by Neil L. Wilson (Wilson, “Substances without Substrata, The Review of Metaphysics”, 12 (4), 521-539), in the interpretation of expressions by other people to assume rationality, i.e. conclusive, coherent and true conduct in these people. The principle was taken up and further developed by D. Davidson (Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation”, Oxford 1974)._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Jerry Fodor on Principle of Charity - Dictionary of Arguments
IV 79 Transcendental/argument/Davidson/Fodor/Lepore: Davidson's transcendental argument for the principle of charity is as follows: if we do not assume that the speaker believes the most things correctly, then language acquisition by radical interpretation is impossible. IV 80 Language acquisition is possible, however. So it must be assumed that most of the beliefs of the speaker are true. >Belief/Davidson. Fodor/LeporeVsDavidson: there is no clear reason to believe the second premise (that radical interpretation is possible). Therefore, the transcendental argument fails. IV 95f Principle of Charity/Charity Principle/Davidson/Fodor/Lepore: the Principle of Charity is not necessary at all. The fact that an interpretation that makes more sentences true than another interpretation is preferable itself is not the principle of charity. It is rather a methodological principle for evaluating theories. IV 99f Holism/meaning holism/Fodor/Lepore: the charity principle buys more than the compositionality for iterated belief contexts. These are in fact more fine-grained. "Believes that" is more opaque than it is nomologically coextensive. Then the radical interpretation does not allow to assume most beliefs of the speaker to be true. Principle of charity: cannot eliminate the hypothesis that Sam believes that snow is F. Radical Interpretation/RI/Fodor/Lepore: the radical interpretation works only in non-intentional contexts. >Semantic holism, >Holism, >Radical interpretation. IV 109 Principle of Charity/Charity Principle/Lewis: the principle of charity is part of our concept of the person. IV 160 Charity/Fodor/LeporeVsDavidson: charity cannot be used by the omniscient: he will always misinterpret the erring if he assumes his sentences as mostly true (in the light of the interpreter). So he must not apply the same method (IV 159/160). Solution: the omniscient must construct my false beliefs as false in his light and the true ones as true in his light. He can only do that if he waives the charity principle. IV 160 Charity/Fodor/Lepore: charity can only be used between two omniscient beings. It is an incoherent concept to have an omniscient exercise charity with a erring being._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
F/L Jerry Fodor Ernest Lepore Holism. A Shoppers Guide Cambridge USA Oxford UK 1992 Fodor I Jerry Fodor "Special Sciences (or The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis", Synthese 28 (1974), 97-115 In Kognitionswissenschaft, Dieter Münch, Frankfurt/M. 1992 Fodor II Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz Sprachphilosophie und Sprachwissenschaft In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle, Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 Fodor III Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz The availability of what we say in: Philosophical review, LXXII, 1963, pp.55-71 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle, Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 |
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Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-28